Sunday, July 24, 2011

How to shop off-registry on purpose

They threw me a wedding shower last weekend in my hometown, which was a hell of a thing to do, don't you think? There were peach hand-pies and wine and brown-eyed babies paraded around on hips. I've said before that gift-giving is an art and that registries are boring, and I stand by that. I was told all along that people get a kick out of shopping from registries, so I shelved my hand-wringing Woody Allen-ness about it all, and Nick and I went out into the world with zappers and zapped objects for the home. So, while I was very much pleased to unwrap some items previously zapped by me (wine glasses! compost pail!) - my friends really nailed it with the off-registry gifts.

Ana gave me a fifth of Buffalo Trace bourbon and three little jars of accompanying simple syrups (ginger, mint, vanilla) that she made and canned. Jenn gave us the precious initial mugs above, although I have weirdly taken a shine to the N mug and left the E mug untouched? Michelle gave us a gift card to our local independent backpacking store so we can take on the Andes in style.